Today's post is from Robby Slaughter of Slaughter Development, a business process improvement consulting firm here in Indianapolis.Email marketing is absolutely crucial to your business. I get it. And it's the holidays, and you feel the need to use your email marketing platform to reach out to customers with a greeting.
That's great. I feel you. But for the love of pete, please stop the holiday card madness!
You know what I'm talking about: the generic messages that just read "Happy Holidays from ABC Corporation!" Do you have any idea how many of those I'm going to receive today?
Answer: A half dozen or more.
Here's what I think when I receive a "seasons greetings" email from you that says little more than just "seasons greetings":
- You've got email marketing software, but you don't know how to use it
- You don't know what to say, so you're just copying everyone else
- You count every email open as a "win", no matter how instantaneous the deletion.
This is not a case of the bah-humbugs. I do like the holiday season. And I want to hear stories about what your company is up to. Maybe you are raising money for some important cause. Maybe your employees are taking some interesting vacations. Really, telling me anything beyond just general well-wishes is going to be interesting.
In fact: being interesting is the secret to email engagement. You can pique my interest in many different ways. Maybe it's a special offer. Perhaps it's a distinctive story. No matter what you choose to do, if you're different than every other message in my inbox, I'm more likely to read it.
If I could sum up all email marketing best practices in just one word, I'd choose "unique." If your message could only have been sent from your company, it's got a good chance of real engagement. Keep this in mind, not just for the season, but for your email marketing strategy year-round.
Happy Holidays!
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